


Five Times Carlos Learned Something (+1 Time He Already Knew)

by freosan



Series: Reliant [2]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos is too submissive for his own good, Cecil is Mostly Human, Cecil is a good Dom, D/s, M/M, Science denial, Tentacles, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:54:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freosan/pseuds/freosan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos learns fast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Name

Carlos considers it, but he can't bring himself to call Cecil 'master', even though that's apparently traditional. He doesn't think Cecil would like it much, either. The one time Carlos tries out 'sir' - it sounds strange even to him - Cecil goes wide-eyed and grimaces and asks if Carlos has forgotten who he is. 

The fact that that was the first scenario Cecil jumped to was a little worrying, but, well: Night Vale. The upshot is that Carlos doesn't try out any other titles.

It bothers him, though: that when he wants with all his soul to show respect, he doesn't have anything at his disposal to show that in his speech. Just "Yes" or "No" seem too abrupt. He requires more data.

Cecil calls him _Carlos_. Just Carlos, never a pet name or a title. He has a hundred adjectives - 'perfect' and 'beautiful' of course being the most common, and Carlos has gotten used to those - but only one name.  

The problem is that Cecil's voice can make anything sound like the most intimate endearment ever invented, whereas Carlos sounds like whiny sandpaper. Cecil could curse at him and it would make him - actually, he's going to set that thought aside for later, because he thinks he would like that a great deal. The point remains, however, that Carlos needs something to call him.

It’s a problem he sits on until one evening when they’re tangled together on the couch, a movie forgotten on Cecil’s ancient television set. Cecil is sitting in Carlos’s lap, and Carlos has his hands under Cecil’s bright purple striped shirt, stroking skin and imagining that he can feel the tattooed tentacles on his shoulders and ribs. Cecil is combing his fingers through Carlos’s hair absently.

Cecil’s hair _thing_ has been getting more and more obvious now that Carlos has given him permission to play with it. Now Cecil grabs a handful of Carlos’s hair, none too gently, and pulls his head back.

Carlos gasps out, “ _Cecil_.” 

The sharp-toothed smile Cecil gives him is unutterably sexy. “Say that again,” he orders, and pulls harder.

“Cecil,” Carlos replies, unthinkingly. 

Cecil purrs his approval. “You should use my name more. It sounds so much _better_ coming out of your mouth.”

Carlos blinks, confused, and opens his mouth to argue, but Cecil knows him at least _that_ well by now. He twists and covers Carlos’s mouth with his hand, raising an eyebrow, and Carlos shuts it immediately. 

Cecil nods. “Mm, good. I like it when you don’t argue with my compliments.”

Carlos watches him, silently, from behind his hand. Cecil’s not letting up on the pressure, or on the pulling. Carlos thinks Cecil could break his neck like this, and Carlos couldn’t protest, and his parasympathetic nervous system decides it _really likes_ that idea.

“Is this okay?” Cecil asks, suddenly all knitted eyebrows and concern. He takes his hand away and Carlos feels a bit of a pang. “We haven’t talked about, uh, gagging before. Is this something you like?”

Carlos takes a deep breath. “Yes.” There’s a brief pause while the events of the last minute slot into place in his brain, and he amends: “Yes, Cecil.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Cecil says. “Oh, that’s _good_.” And he kisses Carlos softly. When he pulls away, he looks like he’s thinking hard. 

Carlos licks his lips and stays quiet, waiting for Cecil to decide if he’s going to push this any farther. 

“I think,” Cecil says, “that I like you being able to talk. So, maybe not a gag. _But_.” His voice is heavy with promise, and _ideas_. Carlos considers before he asks any questions. 

“Yes, Cecil?” he prompts.

Cecil’s white eyes widen. “So perfect, Carlos,” he whispers. “I think, until I tell you we’re done, you shouldn’t say anything except yes, no, and my name. How does that sound?”

The question is open-ended enough that Carlos struggles with it for a second before he says, “Yes, Cecil.”

Cecil’s smile is tender and sweet, but his nails dragging down the side of Carlos’s neck are decidedly not. 

“ _Cecil_!” 

“You learn so fast, my Carlos,” Cecil says, and pulls the edges of Carlos’s shirt up. Carlos has lost track of where Cecil’s hands are and the process of stripping him seems to go very, very fast. 

Carlos had no idea he knew so many different ways to say one name. Cecil keeps smiling and surprising him, making him gasp and _want_ to say something, anything, but he’s stuck for words - he only has the one. Cecil licks his chest, and Carlos gasps out his name. A bite, and Carlos groans it, turning the two syllables into five at least. Cecil’s fingers coax at the waistband of Carlos’s jeans, and the name becomes a plea - _yes Cecil Cecil yes_ \- because he can’t even say ‘please’.

He comes back to himself eventually, to Cecil’s smug grin as he looks down on him, to Cecil’s hair all mussed and out of place and Cecil’s shirt unbuttoned, but his slacks still on.

“Cecil?” Carlos asks. 

Cecil’s grin stretches, if possible, even wider, and he licks his lips. “I see you’ve learned that one well,” he says. “You can say whatever you want now. If you can remember any other words.”

Carlos pulls him down by his unbuttoned shirt front, kissing him hard enough that words are unnecessary. When he lets go, he smiles. “Thank you, Cecil.”

By Cecil's expression, that was exactly the right thing to say.


	2. Augmentation

Carlos is face down on the floor of Cecil’s living room, writhing with the burn of Cecil’s cock pushing into him. He’s been told to keep his eyes closed, so he is. Cecil’s pinning his hands above his head, bending over him as he pushes in, so slow and so good Carlos can’t catch his breath. 

Cecil pulls on his hair, hard, and snaps his hips, and Carlos lets out a whimper and his eyes flutter open, just for a second.

Cecil’s hand is over his eyes before he can see anything more than light. “I said to keep your eyes closed, Carlos,” Cecil purrs from above him. “Do you need me to get the blindfolds?”

“No, Cecil,” Carlos says.

“Good,” Cecil tells him, and drives into him again. Carlos twists and pulls against the weight pinning his wrists down.

Wait.

“Cecil? _Cecil_.”

“What is it?” Cecil asks, all attentiveness. He stopped moving the moment Carlos spoke, but he’s still got his hand over Carlos’s eyes.

“Your other hand’s in my hair,” Carlos says, and tests the pressure against his wrists one more time. “What’s holding me down?”

“...Oh,” Carlos hears, and then a mutter that might be “stupid, Cecil, stupid.” Cecil’s hand comes away from Carlos’s eyes. Carlos keeps them closed.

“You can look,” Cecil says quietly. “Don’t be scared. It’s just me.”

Carlos opens his eyes and looks up at his own wrists.

There is a smooth, black... something laid over his crossed wrists, pressing him gently and firmly into the floor. It's warm, like skin. It is covered in faintly glowing lines, and it arcs up above his head. Carlos opens his other eye.

His hair is a tangle over it, but he shakes his head and he can still make out the arc of the _something_ going over Cecil's head and disappearing. There's another one above his other shoulder, the tip of it hovering around Carlos's hip.

Carlos pulls on his wrists again, and this time the thing lets him go. He gets up on his elbows and grabs it. It wraps gently around his fingers and clings on with tiny suckers. Behind him, Cecil, still buried to the hilt in Carlos, groans.

"It's a tentacle," Carlos says. It's not really necessary to say aloud, but it helps him cope. "Those tattoos on your back..."

Cecil nods. The glowing lines on the tentacle shift to pale pink that Carlos recognizes: Cecil is blushing.

Carlos smiles in recognition. "Just like the eyes."

"Similar," Cecil says. "These can manifest physically; the eyes can only see - _oh_ ," he says. Carlos assumes this is because he's started stroking the tentacle with the hand that it's not clinging to.

"Sensitive, I see," he murmurs. Cecil nods again, a little more emphatically.

"Why have you been keeping them hidden?" Carlos asks. He's still watching - playing with - the tentacle. It's muscled sort of like a snake, flexible and stronger than Carlos would've expected, had he ever thought about it. The skin is much darker than Cecil's skin, not truly black but a deep dark brown, and the suckers cling to Carlos and leave little red marks behind.

"I haven't! Not exactly. I was going to show you," Cecil says. "I can't stop them coming out sometimes, especially when we're being intimate, and I didn't want to shock you."

"It's kind of late for _that_ ," Carlos murmurs. He kisses the tip of the tentacle. It slides along his face. "Do you have control over them?"

"Only when I'm thinking about it," Cecil says. "Otherwise they do what they want, but they won't hurt you, I promise."

"I'm not worried," Carlos tells him. He really isn't. He pushes his hips back into Cecil's and is rewarded with a surprised gasp. Now that he's thinking about it, he can feel the second tentacle fluttering around his hip, so light he could have mistaken it for the brush of Cecil's hand or even a breath of air.

Carlos puts his hands back on the ground, crossing his wrists above his head. "Go ahead," he says, when Cecil doesn't move. Not for the first time, he's thankful that his tattoo decided to settle on the back of his head: even with his face pressed into the ground, he can see the surprise and pleasure spread over Cecil’s face.

Then Cecil's hand comes down on the back of Carlos's neck, covering his third eye, and Carlos squirms happily as he's pushed back into the carpet. The tentacle wraps around his wrists twice this time and pulls his arms off the floor.

“Is that good?” Cecil asks.

Carlos just gasps and nods, because that second tentacle is now using all its considerable strength to wrap around him and pull his hips up into Cecil's. Cecil has one hand fisted in the hair at the back of Carlos's head, pulling hard, and the other slides between his shoulder blades to push him down. Carlos can hardly breathe with how Cecil's bent him and Cecil's weight on his back.

"I may never be able to plumb the depths of your perfection," Cecil says into Carlos's ear. Carlos lets out a noise that might have been a whine.

The tentacle at his hips - tentacles? He can’t tell, he’ll find out later, now isn’t the time - snakes forward and wraps itself around his cock, slithering up and down with teasing touches entirely at odds with the way Cecil is pounding into him. Carlos tries to hold himself up and push back into Cecil, but he can hardly move, and when his legs start shaking, another tentacle comes from nowhere and braces them. Carlos gives in, lying limp in the net Cecil’s made for him.

“Perfect, perfect, Carlos...” Cecil mutters, and then he slips into some kind of language that’s all growling and low, haunting vowels, and Carlos thinks he should find that disturbing, but it’s still Cecil’s voice and Cecil is making him feel so fucking good...

The tentacle wraps tight around the base of Carlos’s cock, around his balls, and Carlos groans as his building orgasm is denied.

“Soon, Carlos, soon,” Cecil says, each word accompanied by a thrust, a flick of fingers over the head of Carlos’s erection, Cecil’s own panting breaths.

Carlos nods, because even now he can’t deny Cecil anything. But he also whispers, “Please,” because he knows Cecil can’t deny him anything, either.

He hears Cecil’s sharp intake of breath and then he feels Cecil’s hips stutter as he comes. The tentacles squeeze him everywhere almost to the point of pain, and release him.

Carlos thrashes against Cecil’s hold as he tips over the edge, cursing into the carpet and then forgetting how to breathe. The tentacles are still on him, stroking him, edging every last bit of his orgasm out of him until he again lies still in Cecil’s grip.

Cecil turns him over on his back, carefully, and grins as he comes up to sit by Carlos’s head. His tentacles are fanned out behind his shoulders - bilaterally symmetrical, Carlos notes, six on each side. Carlos reaches his hand up. Cecil twines three of the tentacles around it, gently.


	3. Fear

Carlos is a little surprised to receive a phone call from Cecil while he’s listening to Cecil’s show. Cecil has just spent several minutes going on about feral dogs, savage, anti-federalist feral dogs, transformed back from plastic bags and bent on vengeance, and okay, Carlos has mostly been tuning it out, but he’s still perfectly aware that it’s Cecil speaking. So when Cecil’s ringtone starts playing, it takes him a second to parse it. He fumbles for his phone. 

“Carlos!” Cecil says, as soon as Carlos presses the ‘answer’ button and before Carlos can get a word out. “Are you at home?”

“I’m in the lab, Cecil. It’s only six.”

“Didn’t you go in at five this morning?”

Carlos has to think about that one for a second. “...Yes?” he eventually ventures. He did get an awfully early phone call from one of the research assistants this morning. That was probably at about fiveish.

“My Carlos, such a dedicated researcher,” Cecil says. “Stay where you are.”

“What’s the matter?” Carlos asks, already going to the window to see what disaster has befallen Night Vale _this_ time.

“Carlos, shut the window and sit back down.”

Carlos stops in the middle of opening the window, closes it, and sits back down. He’s very proud of his restraint in not asking “How the hell did you know that?” until _after_ he’s followed orders.

"I'm not spying on you, Carlos, I just know you too well. I want you to stay where you are until I come get you."

"Cecil, something's happening out there," Carlos says. He can hear the wind picking up outside. Not another sandstorm? He does not have fond memories of the last one, but surely Cecil would have said.

"Yes. It is. _Stay inside_. No science. Or at least no outdoor science. I'll be over as soon as I'm done with the show." 

"I doubt it's worse than the shadow contagion. If I just go out to take a few readings I might be able to -"

" _Carlos_." Cecil's voice is sharp enough to silence Carlos's protests instantly. "That's an order."

Carlos pulls the phone away from his ear to glare at Cecil's picture on the screen. "This could be important, Cecil. You can't just pull that omnipotent dom stuff on a whim."

Cecil is silent for a few seconds, just long enough for Carlos to start to regret his words. Then, quietly, he asks, "Do you trust me or not, Carlos?"

Carlos sighs. "I trust you, Cecil."

"Stay inside."

"Yes, Cecil." Carlos gives the window one more glance. There are _glowing lights_. It really _could_ be important, whatever's happening.

"Thank you, Carlos," Cecil says. Carlos reluctantly turns his head away from the lights.

He can't concentrate on his work, though it was interesting enough two minutes ago. Now all he wants to do is go outside and figure out what the hell is making the fog - there is definitely fog; he can't even seen the lights of Big Rico's clearly - glow in such brilliant colors. And why there is fog at all, when he can hear the wind howling.

Carlos ends up at the window. Of course he ends up at the window. He considers opening it. Cecil said to close the window; he didn't say not to open it again. He could at least check the radiation levels and get some more data for the equipment he's developing (he's privately calling it the weirdness sensor).

Carlos knows perfectly well he is thinking like a willfully obtuse small child. He finds he doesn’t much care. Cecil has no right to throw his weight around like this.

He distracts himself by checking on the seismometers (slightly calmer than usual) and taking the best photos possible from his window (not very good). He is positively itching to get a sample of the air out there.

The weather starts playing on the radio, something alt-rock with lyrics in a language Carlos doesn't even recognize. When it's random European languages, the weather is usually bad, though Carlos hasn't determined the exact pattern of 'bad' yet. He supposes maelstroms of glowing fog count.

He doesn't open his window. Instead he sends a text to Cecil that simply says "goddammit".

Cecil's reply a few seconds later is "Patience, Carlos <3".

Carlos scowls at his phone and tries to get back to his analysis of the metal tree sample he finally got his hands on. It seems to cause objects in flight to combust at a height proportional to its own height, which he had found fascinating up to now. 

Cecil wraps up, and Carlos switches off his radio to avoid the promised sound of glass being shattered by the voice of an opera singer. Without the extra noise from the radio, the lab is very quiet. All Carlos can hear is the wind outside. It wouldn’t hurt, would it, if he just popped out for a minute? Just for one sample.

He’s just about to open the window, sample cylinder in hand, when Cecil comes crashing through the door.

“Carlos!” Cecil shouts. Several tentacles wrap around Carlos’s chest and arms, and yank him backwards to the floor. The sample cylinder goes flying and smashes apart in some corner of the room. Carlos lies still with stars in his vision, unable to breathe for a half-second.

“I told you not to go outside,” Cecil says. 

Carlos blinks a few times. His vision is fuzzy; he can’t even focus on Cecil, looming just above him. One of Cecil’s tentacles hands Cecil something, and Cecil slides the glasses onto Carlos’s face. Ah.

“Did I not tell you not to go outside?” Cecil demands. 

“Y- no, Cecil,” Carlos says. “I mean. You said not to.”

“Yes. I did. I assumed you’d understand that extended to the window.” 

Carlos huffs. “Whatever’s out there could be important. I needed to at least find out.”

“You do not make that kind of decision when I’ve told you not to,” Cecil says, more firmly than Carlos thinks he has any right to.

Carlos tries to sit up, and Cecil pushes his shoulder, trying to keep him down. Okay, Carlos is not having that right now. He twists away from Cecil far enough to at least sit up.

“Cecil, what the hell. Since when do you interfere with my work?”

“Since your work became an obstacle to taking care of you!”

Carlos blinks at him. “Run that by me again, please.”

Cecil sits back on his heels and runs his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Carlos. I don’t mean to yell.”

“Then stop,” Carlos suggests. He glances towards the window; he can’t see much from this angle, but he doesn’t think there are any more lights flashing. Damn. Has he missed it?

“You’re still paying more attention to that... _phenomenon_ than you are to me,” Cecil rebukes him, but more gently this time.

Carlos faces Cecil, deliberately turning his head away from the window. “I’m listening,” he says.

Cecil takes a shaky breath. “The cloud was taking people away. I wasn’t allowed to say much on air,” he says, with a dark look over Carlos’s shoulder at the sky outside. “I didn’t know if you’d be listening, or if you’d take it as a challenge, or if your experiments might draw its attention somehow. That’s why I called.”

Carlos feels all the irritation drain out of him. He knows how awful it is for Cecil, thinking Carlos might get caught up in some Night Vale horror again, and not being able to leave the station. 

“I didn’t know,” he says. “I didn’t even hear that part of the broadcast.”

“You were trying to do science, Carlos. It’s alright, I understand.” Cecil seems to sort of sink in on himself. “I’m not mad.”

“You sounded mad,” Carlos says. It’s an observation, not a condemnation, but Cecil looks crushed.

“Oh, _Carlos_.” Cecil shakes his head. “I just wanted you to be safe.”

“You couldn’t have just _told_ me that?” 

“Would that have stopped you from going outside?”

Carlos has to admit that it would not. “I still think I deserved an explanation.”

“I’m sorry,” Cecil says again. “You’re right.”

Carlos decides Cecil looks miserable enough and moves across the floor towards him. As soon as he’s close enough Cecil wraps him in a many-limbed, suffocating hug.

“I want to keep you in a safe, warm box somewhere,” Cecil says. “Somewhere far away from all the dangers of the world. I don’t know what I would do if you got hurt again.”

The sentiment is Cecil all over. Carlos settles into the hug, because Cecil does not seem likely to let go any time soon. He strokes Carlos’s hair gently. “You’re always diving into danger. It’s so heroic, but...”

Carlos balks a little at that description. Him, heroic? Not hardly. He’s just curious as a cat. Cecil pulls on his hair a little bit and kisses his cheek before releasing him.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” Carlos begins. 

“I can hear the ‘but’ coming.”

“I can’t actually live in a box, Cecil. I have to be able to investigate things like this.”

Cecil sighs. “I know. But this was... just this once, I knew all I had to do to keep you safe was call you. Can you blame me for wanting that?”

Carlos shakes his head against Cecil’s shoulder. “I can’t.”


	4. Kink

“Do you have to talk about our sex life on the air?” Carlos grumbles one night after Cecil has skirted FCC guidelines and Station Management’s wrath talking about their previous night’s activities. Carlos told his lab assistants on the first day they showed up to listen to the radio every single day, and they do. 

“If you want me to, I’ll stop,” Cecil says, cupping Carlos’s chin in both hands. “Do you want me to?”

Carlos can’t look away, so Cecil can see the blush rising as Carlos thinks about hearing Cecil describe him - apparently he is ‘completely satisfying’ - so that the entire town can hear. It’s practically exhibitionism. Scratch that, it is exhibitionism. Damn near everyone who’s looked at Carlos today has given him a knowing smirk and sometimes a thumbs-up.

Carlos shakes his head, and Cecil grins with all his teeth.


	5. Habit

Cecil pops up directly underneath Carlos and says, "Check your phone."

Carlos falls over in surprise, because he has been ferrying things down from the shelves in the lab all afternoon and is precariously balanced on the ladder, and because he was pretty sure Cecil was supposed to be at work at this hour and he was absolutely not expecting Cecil to be there.

Cecil catches him with three suddenly manifested tentacles and sets him gently upright. Then the tentacles retract, without so much as running through his hair or over his ass. 

Carlos must give Cecil an odd look, because Cecil sets his mouth in a grim line, and says again, "Check your phone."

Carlos decides it's not worth asking questions yet and goes to retrieve his phone from the pocket of the lab coat hung up by the door where he left it this morning.

He has sixteen new text messages and three missed calls, going back over... the last eight hours, he sees. He checks their sender, a horrible suspicion settling in his gut: yes, they're all from Cecil.

"Didn't we talk about this, Carlos? I want to know where you are," Cecil says quietly. Carlos looks at him a bit helplessly. Cecil is unmoved.

"It's not that I need you to constantly check in with me - that would be ridiculous, you're a grown man - but if I try to get in touch with you, I expect you to answer."

Carlos looks down at the phone in his hands and then puts it aside. He straightens his spine a little and bows his head. 

"Yes, Cecil."

"What did you do today that was so engaging?" Cecil asks.

Carlos thinks, trying to put his memory in order. He's been trying to get everything in order to move; the City Council finally granted their bloodstone chanting request for a bigger lab space, and doing the move without disrupting any ongoing experiments is a headache.

"I had a couple of physicals slated for this morning, so I left the phone out of the room," he tells Cecil. He'd meant to check it as soon as he got done with the exams, but then he'd gotten distracted by... "The tarantulas had a new theory of celestial movement - they're still wrong but they're learning - so I talked with them for a while, and then we started packing up the lab." Carlos darts a glance at the mess of boxes and half-packed supplies. "We had lunch at some point. I wanted to get the unstable materials transferred all at once, so I started working on that. Then I figured, since you and I didn't have plans..." he winces. Apparently they could have had plans if Carlos hadn't completely failed, again, to be attentive. "I figured I'd stay late and get the rest of my stuff packed."

"I see," Cecil says. "So, nothing life-threatening, then. You were distracted."

"I'm sorry, Cecil."

"I'm not sorry your life wasn't in danger," Cecil tells him, sounding for the first time since he's gotten here something other than deeply disappointed. Carlos risks a glance at his face.

Before he can get a good read on Cecil's expression, though, Cecil says, "Carlos, get down," and waves at the ground. Carlos obediently drops to his knees, right in the middle of the lab floor, and it's only after he's down there that he thinks he should've checked for hazardous chemicals or glass.

"Forgetting your phone is becoming a bad habit for you," Cecil tells him. Carlos looks up a bit, and Cecil says, "Head down." Carlos looks back at the floor so sharply that his hair falls in front of his face.

"I don't want you to have bad habits," Cecil continues. "Especially not ones that affect our relationship. Do you know how distracted I was all day when you didn't text back? It doesn't take much."

Carlos looks up slightly, under his hair; Cecil lifts his eyebrow and Carlos's eyes snap back to the floor. "I'm sorry, Cecil," Carlos repeats. He's scared Cecil again. He hates scaring Cecil, and he's always mad at himself when Cecil has to - to take the time to remind him, like this. Carlos and Cecil are both happier when Cecil can praise him and reward him. And Carlos knows for a fact that Cecil's first instinct when scared is suffocating hugs, not this distance.

"I can't believe you're sorry unless you change your behavior," Cecil says. "Do you think you can?"

"You know I try, Cecil."

"But you still slip like this," Cecil says. "I don't know. Maybe you need more structure to help you."

Carlos says nothing. He's trying to figure out what Cecil might mean. 

He’s come to no conclusions by the time Cecil steps behind him. Carlos stiffens, straightening up if possible even more. Cecil stands so close Carlos can feel the heat off his legs, but he doesn’t dare move.

Cecil would be more disappointed if he did.

“I think I can help, Carlos. But you have to be willing to work with me. Are you?” 

“Yes, Cecil,” Carlos says without thinking for a second. Of course he is. He always will be.

“Good,” Cecil says. Carlos feels the faintest, lightest brush of fingers over the hair on the back of his head. “I want to try an experiment.” He sounds proud of himself. “Something that will prove to me that you’re as sorry as you say you are.”

“Whatever you want, Cecil,” Carlos nearly whispers.

“All I ask of you is to try your best. Maybe your best can be a little better this time.” Carlos can almost hear the smile in Cecil’s words, warming them even as Cecil pretends to be cold. He sighs with relief.

“Do you understand?” Cecil prods him.

“Yes, Cecil,” Carlos says. He does, really, he does. He’s good at understanding things. He’s not so great at acting on that understanding - at least, not in any reasonably consistent way.

"I've heard it takes forty days to form a habit," Cecil says, resting his hands on Carlos's shoulders. Carlos tries to see his face, but his hair's down; his third eye may as well not be there.

"Sixty-six days. There was a study," Carlos says automatically. That's how he got in the habit of going running, back in college. Cecil pets his hair.

"Sixty-six days, then," he says, and Carlos can just _hear_ that he’s grinning. Carlos wonders if he's signed his own death warrant. Cecil walks around in front of Carlos, his lime-green shoes and dark purple slacks coming to a rest in front of him. Carlos keeps his eyes fixed on Cecil’s feet and his attention on Cecil’s voice.

"For sixty-six days, I want you to... do something for me," Cecil tells him. "It can be anything. Just one thing. Just something. I want you to remember that you have a responsibility to me, now." He goes down to one knee, the better to get close to Carlos's face. "Can you do that for me?" he asks, tipping Carlos’s chin up.

Carlos is forced to face up to the fact that he doesn't actually know. Three or four days, sure. A week, probably. After that... 

"I want to say yes, Cecil," he admits.

"We'll work on it together. It's okay if you miss a day, but if you miss two in a week, there’ll be a penalty, and we'll start over." Cecil has his hands on Carlos's shoulders again, and Carlos takes a breath and tries to relax.

"Alright. I'll try."

"You're so good for me," Cecil says. He pulls Carlos forward and kisses his forehead. Carlos sighs. He'll do a lot to keep Cecil happy enough with him that he says things like that.

Cecil stands up, and Carlos remains on the floor, Cecil’s hand still in his hair. “Stand up, Carlos. We have plans.”

“What kind of plans?” Carlos asks as he gets to his feet. 

Cecil smiles and kisses him, just lightly, on the cheek. “If you’d read your texts, then you would know, wouldn’t you? I have clothes for you in the car.”

Carlos shifts uncomfortably and bites his tongue on his complaints. Cecil leads him out to the car with one hand wrapped around the back of his neck.

It turns out that their plans are ballroom dancing. Cecil’s brought Carlos a tuxedo that he just feels awkward in. Cecil himself has a slinky, perfectly tailored ballgown. Carlos had no idea that he found crossdressing so attractive before Cecil swept out into the dance floor, but the sight of Cecil in body-hugging purple silk takes his breath away.

Carlos trips over his own feet and Cecil’s, but he’s got it more or less figured out by the end of the night, even when the band changes from a string quintet to screeching bird-women on tambourine and kazoo. 

Cecil takes Carlos home that night. In the morning, when he wakes up sore and happy, he lies in bed for twenty minutes thinking about _things he can do for Cecil_ before he gets up and makes pancakes.

Cecil is _delighted_ with breakfast in bed and says so, repeatedly, and lets Carlos lick maple syrup off his fingers.

That’s easy. The first five days are easy. Carlos surprises Cecil with a visit at lunchtime, calls him to describe an experiment he thinks Cecil will like, returns every text message within a minute and writes him a love note that he slips, blushing, into Cecil’s messenger bag before he leaves for work.

The weekend is a bit trickier, but Cecil is appreciative enough when Carlos refreshes his bloodstone circle (he’d just figured out the ritual for himself, and he might have been showing off a little, though he knew he wasn’t as fluent in the ancient tongue as Cecil was). On Sunday, Carlos surprises Cecil by coming to Cecil’s apartment at lunchtime and shyly offering to stay all afternoon.

Carlos misses a day for the first time the next week. When he comes to bed that night, Cecil is looking at him expectantly. He thinks for a second that he could play it off, but instead he hangs his head and admits that he forgot.

Cecil fucks him slowly and sweetly for nearly an _hour_ , with fingers and tentacles and finally his cock, and pulls out immediately after he comes, leaving Carlos achingly hard and begging for release. Cecil takes Carlos’s hands and ties them to the headboard, loosely, but securely, and falls asleep with his head on Carlos’s chest, ignoring Carlos’s pleas. In the morning Cecil says, batting his eyes innocently, that he simply forgot to get Carlos off.

Carlos has never focused on any one person the way he focuses on Cecil then. Cecil becomes an experiment, a research subject, a fact of nature that Carlos has to break down and understand and describe with diagrams and equations until he can instinctively _know_ him. 

He gathers data obsessively. When Cecil says he might enjoy something, Carlos writes it down in his notes. He has a chart of reactions Cecil has had to his efforts at _something Cecil will like_ , 1-10 with one being mild astonishment, five being something like his reaction when faced with Maru the cat, and ten being “I said he could pull my hair”, and he dutifully records the number next to the item each time he fills out the log.

On day twenty-one, following something Cecil had said about Carlos’s skin being canvas for poetry, he manages to procure an extremely illegal magic marker. He presents it to Cecil, who pounces on him, tears his clothes off and writes the promised poetry and “property of Cecil Palmer” on every inch of skin Carlos can cover with a lab coat.

He makes it to day thirty-six (polishing Cecil’s shoes - he even found green shoe polish) before he has something like a nervous breakdown about it.

Cecil finds him on the bedroom floor, staring at the freshly polished shoes and surrounded by pages of his logbook and list after list after list of rejected ideas crumpled up and thrown into the floor. Carlos doesn’t even look up when he comes in, though he hears him - it’s hard not to hear the crinkle of paper being stepped on. But he’s lost in thought, so he doesn’t actually look until Cecil picks up one of the pages, smooths it out, and starts reading.

“Dishes - already _do_ dishes, that doesn’t help. Can’t paint nails. Already surprised him with sex, is waiting in bed different enough?” Carlos sits bolt upright and turns around, blushing, to see Cecil leaning on the wall with one of the lists in hand. Cecil smiles at him.

“Cecil! You weren’t supposed to see that,” he says, rather weakly.

“I can tell,” Cecil replies. “Did you lose track of time, my Carlos?”

Carlos looks around him, then out the window. It’s starting to get dark outside, which doesn’t tell him much other than it’s nominally evening-ish, but that is a lot later than he’d been planning. “Yes, Cecil.”

“I hope you haven’t been worrying yourself too much over this,” Cecil says gently. 

Carlos runs a hand through his hair. “I haven’t been slacking off at work or anything, if that’s what you mean.” It’s just that while he used to spend all his time outside the labs thinking about things to do inside the labs, now as soon as he closes the door behind him he’s trying to figure out what to do for Cecil.

“No, Carlos, I mean I don’t want you worrying yourself too much,” Cecil says. He beckons Carlos over with elegant fingers, and Carlos crawls the short space between them to kneel at Cecil’s feet. Cecil buries his hand in Carlos’s hair.

“Are you afraid I’ll be angry with you?” Cecil asks him. “I couldn’t be. You’ve been wonderful - you’re always wonderful, but you’ve been more so the last month.”

“I ran out of ideas,” Carlos says, leaning his face against Cecil’s thigh. “There’s only so many things I _can_ do.”

“I didn’t ask for everything to be unique,” Cecil asks. “The point is not to force you to make some grand romantic gesture every day.”

“I wanted you to know I was really thinking about it,” Carlos explains. “Not just phoning it in.”

“Carlos, stand up.”

Carlos gets to his feet. He’s trying not to tower over Cecil, but it’s difficult, with Cecil back against the wall and Carlos right in front of him. Despite that, Carlos doesn’t want to move away.

Cecil reaches up and touches his face. His tattoos are a deep, clear emerald green, a color that Carlos doesn’t see much on him. He knows Cecil’s tattoo colors are loosely tied to his emotional state, but he hasn’t figured this one out yet.

“Thank you for shining my shoes. They look much better,” Cecil says.

Carlos licks his lips. “You’re welcome, Cecil.”

Cecil runs his fingertip along the stubble on Carlos’s jaw, and then stands on his tiptoes to kiss him gently.

“I appreciate how hard you’re working,” Cecil says, waving the wrinkled paper in his hand. “But you don’t have to. I only wanted you to remember better.”

Carlos smiles and ducks his head. “I remember all the time now. I can’t stop thinking about you,” he confesses. “Not that - not that I didn’t before, too, but now you’re...” he waves his hand at the mess on the floor, because he doesn’t know how Cecil will take being described as an experiment, when Carlos means that in the most loving way possible.

“Yes, I can see that,” Cecil murmurs. He draws Carlos in to rest his head on Cecil’s shoulder, which he does gladly.

“I would like you to paint my nails,” he says.

“I suck at painting anything,” Carlos reminds him. “You’ve seen my calligraphy.”

“I don’t care. I can show you how. And I want you to know that I will never be opposed to coming home and finding you in my bed.” Cecil’s voice has lowered to a sweet, deep rumble that spreads out in Carlos’s chest like hot tea. 

“It doesn’t seem special if I do it all the time,” Carlos mumbles into Cecil’s collar.

“That’s exactly what I want. I don’t want it to seem special. I want it to be as natural as breathing - maybe more so, considering that we’re all converting to voluntary breathing next year.” Cecil kisses Carlos’s temple and his hand closes around the third eye on the back of Carlos’s neck. Carlos takes a shuddering, deep breath.

“That’s what you need,” Cecil tells him. “Someone to be for. Isn’t it?” The last question is somewhat higher-pitched and more concerned, and Carlos smiles, because that’s Cecil. Be certain of something one moment, questioning it the next.

Carlos wouldn’t have put it that way. But he understands what Cecil means, and maybe it’s better that Cecil’s always been the one to put it to words. He’s better with words. 

“Yes, Cecil,” is all Carlos can manage right now.

“Oh good,” Cecil says, more to himself than to Carlos, Carlos thinks. “Very good.”


	6. Love

"I love you, you do know that," Cecil says. He is very close to Carlos's face; he can feel Carlos's hot breath on his cheek.

"I love you, too," Carlos whispers. Cecil smiles. Carlos is beautiful like this, all soft and eager to please. 

"Tell me you know I love you," Cecil says. Cecil can see him fighting with the questions he wants to ask, as usual, but when Cecil digs his fingers gently into the back of his skull he gives in.

"I know you love me," he says.

Cecil's gone maybe a minute without kissing Carlos, so he does. Carlos opens to him perfectly. "I always have," Cecil continues. "I have since the moment I saw you."

"I know. You told me. You told _everyone_ ," Carlos says, and for once he's smiling when he talks about that first embarrassingly obvious broadcast.

"I had to. It was too much to keep in." Cecil is blushing and so are his tattoos, and he watches Carlos smile and trace the lines of the tentacles pouring over his shoulders. They're flat on his skin right now, calm. 

"It was weird, Cecil. Not any weirder than anything else, but still weird."

Cecil tugs on Carlos's hair and Carlos sighs, immediately falling back into that blissful submissive state. Cecil kisses him again as a reward.

"You're mine, Carlos," he says. He still gets a thrill saying that, expects that he will for the rest of his life. He did not expect when he first met Carlos that such perfection could ever be _his_.

"Yes, Cecil." 

Cecil smiles down at Carlos and pulls his hair harder, making him arch his head back and expose his soft, delicate throat. Cecil bites the junction of neck and shoulder and tugs at the skin to leave a bruise while Carlos writhes.

"It's not _weird_ to fall in love with perfection. And you are perfect, Carlos. Perfect, and beautiful, and mine," Cecil tells him. He knows Carlos barely understands words right now, but he responds beautifully to the sound of Cecil's voice.

“Yes, Cecil,” he says again. Cecil thinks it may be illegal to get this much pleasure out of two words. He’ll have to speak with the Secret Police later. Or maybe this is something he'll keep to himself until he has to give it up.

Carlos shifts beneath him, his back arching to take some of the pressure off his hair. Cecil watches the muscles of his chest work and then pulls harder. Carlos groans, and it is sweeter than the endless drone of the void.

Cecil bites another bruise into Carlos's skin, lower on his chest, letting his teeth sink in and cut flesh so that Carlos hisses with the pain. It will scar. A bite like that would never scar on Cecil, on any Night Vale native; Cecil will be forever pleased, not only that Carlos scars, but that he lets Cecil make such marks on his body. He licks the blood off Carlos's skin, and indulges himself in a few more nips, just so Carlos will make those satisfied noises again. Then he slowly releases his grip on Carlos's hair.

Carlos sighs and stretches out under him. His dark eyes rest on Cecil, observing without expectation in the way of an extremely calm scientist. He is beautifully and perfectly relaxed and Cecil cannot stand it.

He opens his mouth, and Carlos smiles and puts his finger over his lips. “I know, Cecil. I’m not going to forget. Go to sleep.”

Cecil laughs quietly and lays his head on Carlos’s chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read, left kudos, and commented on this unapologetic piece of fluff!
> 
> Also a thousand thanks to my beta, [Sky](http://www.fanfiction.net/~seraphina2). She did her best to protect you all from incomprehensibility.


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